


To live without

by kitty7



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:52:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5624404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty7/pseuds/kitty7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set post 5.12. It was meant to be cathartic for myself and help me get over the season 5 finale which left me so sad. First fic I've ever written, sorry, it's not hopeful!</p>
            </blockquote>





	To live without

After Quinn’s death and her return to the States, Carrie stayed at Maggie’s house. She was truly relieved to see Franny. But there was a terrible numbness inside her. An absolute sadness hanging over everything. A cloud that wouldn’t go away. Carrie looked at her daughter sometimes and knew she was happy to have her rather than actually feel any happiness. Many times she just took Franny in her arms and held her for long moments.

Carrie knew she would crack if there wouldn’t be some normalcy around her, a structured life. And she submitted herself to this structure, other people's lives. She dropped the girls at school in the morning and took Franny to Kindergarten. Then she spent the day doing little errands for Maggie and the girls. Getting Ruby to her piano lesson in time was the most responsible task Carrie could manage. She spent the afternoons with Franny at playgrounds or stayed with her and her cousins at home. She smiled at the kids, but only a part of her was actually there. A mere physical presence. She laughed about their jokes, but it never reached her heart.

She thought about Quinn at night and tried to cry, but there were never any tears. All emotion had stopped when she left the hospital on his last day. She never questioned what she had done. But it left her desperate.

Max stopped by one afternoon, in a nearby park at a playground. They hugged, he congratulated her on her success in Berlin and said how sorry he was. Then they sat on a bench for an hour, more or less silent. When he left, they hugged again for goodbye and desperately clung to each other for a while. Max wiped his eyes when they parted, but Carrie had no tears.

Her thoughts circled around two moments: Not having driven to a hospital after Quinn was shot at the post office. And prematurely waking him from the coma. She relived those moments, again and again and again, each time making a different decision. In her mind she steered the car to a hospital, argued with Saul, told the doctors, no, leave it, we don’t take that risk. It was like a spiral, mind-wrenching and never ending.

But in her thoughts she didn’t go back to his hospital room to the last day of his life.

Saul came to the house, first time she saw him since Berlin. Told her how sorry he was. And talked about her coming back to work, offering positions, responsabilities. He did not push her, knowing there was no point. Just spread it out before her.

He did all the talking.

All of a sudden she said: „We should not have done it.“

Saul looked bewildered.

„Waking him up, from the coma. I should have known. We fucking shouldn’t have done it.“ It was a statement, uttered matter-of-factly and without reproach.

It cut Saul short on agency matters.

„We had to“, he said. „We both agreed on this. And he himself would have done it.“

„I had all the information I needed to figure it out. It killed him. I will regret it for the rest of my life“, she said calmly.

She was sure that Saul could comprehend her emotional state, but he just didn’t realize what Quinn had meant to her. And then Saul didn’t know how he died.

 

Carrie was still in that numb state, rather knowing that she would have to decide on something someday than actually thinking about anything particular, when Astrid called. The BND-officer was staying in DC for some time.

Carrie met her at a diner, not wanting anyone in the house to listen to their conversation. The two women checked each other over the table, affectionately. There was concern in Astrid’s look. And Carrie could detect a shade of sadness in the other woman’s face, mirroring her own.

„I went to the cemetery“, Astrid said. „I had to see it.“

Carrie nodded.

Astrid let her eyes stray out of the window.

„He popped up in my life for many years, came when he wanted to, when he needed me – or something. I hated it sometimes. But I loved it most of the times.“

She fell silent.

Carrie suddenly realized that she envied Astrid having been Quinn's lover. _And we never happened._ The finality was tormenting.

„He wanted out. I dragged him back in.“ Carrie almost whispered.

„He would never have quitted. He wouldn’t.“

„Not alone. Not by himself ...“ And then Carrie told her everything, how Quinn had asked her to leave, her trip to Missouri, the screwd phone call, his disappeareance. How icily cold he had been in Berlin, how past everything.

Astrid looked at her thoughtfully, musing about the tragedy that those two had missed each other. „He wasn’t past everything“, she said, remembering the last time she herself had seen Quinn. „He cared about you, always.“

„Yes“, Carrie continued bitterly, „he protected me all those years, and I never even thanked him. We didn’t talk. I never told him how much I cared. I just followed my fucking selfish interests and let him get into this shit.“

„No! He knew what he was doing! There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.“

„I woke him up. Made the doctors end the coma. Against all medical advice. No one has ever been let down by a friend like he has been let down by me. I am fucking responsible for the stroke he had!“

Considering her silence over the past weeks, Carrie was in a rage.

„You don’t know that. It might have happened anyway. And you had to asset the situation, it was worth a try. He would have made the same decision himself.“

Astrid took a deep breath, then continued: „Carrie, it was good like that. It was good it ended this way. You were there for him.“

Carrie stared at her. Did Astrid know what she had done at the Berlin hospital?

„I, I had to ...“

And suddenly Astrid’s eyes went wide. She knew then.

„You ...“ she started and couldn’t finish. Continued to stare, out of the window again. Closed her eyes, sighed. And finally focused hard on Carrie.

„You did the right thing. He would have wanted it. It was right. There was no other choice.“

And then tears welled up in Carries eyes.

Astrid continued, stressing every word. „He died with dignity. Not dug up in a hole in the ground somewhere. You could hold his hand, be with him. You, of all people.“

Carrie’s tears started to slowly run down her cheeks. Astrid slid over to her side of the table and held her close as Carrie finally was able to cry.


End file.
